The 2014 FIFA World Cup is officially over, collegiettes™!
And the winner is, drum roll please … Germany!
But let’s backtrack first.
The semifinals were last Monday and Wednesday with Brazil versus Germany and the Netherlands versus Argentina.
Brazil was the home country in this tournament, which was supposed to affect their performance in a positive way. Unfortunately, it did not. It was honestly a humiliating match. Even if Brazil wasn’t predicted to win, the defeat wasn’t supposed to that bad. But Germany dominated.
Brazil was missing two of their top defenders, which is no excuse because there’s still other men on the team, of course. It was nice that they honored their missing players though.
But Germany scored their first goal in the 11th minute of the match. The first goal might have slightly shook up the Brazilian defense, but the others completely rattled them. 23 minutes in, 4 more goals were scored by Germany in just a six minute interval. Just wow.
Brazil was unable to come back in the first half and it ended with Brazil 0 and Germany 5. After halftime, Brazil came out strong at first but Germany scored again in the 69th minute. 6 – 0. Just unbelievable! The fans were visibly upset, but this veteran fan holding a replica trophy was one of the worst. Such a sad little man.
Anyway at the 79th minute, Germany scored again and the game was pretty much over. A very disappointing match for Brazil, which wasn’t made any better by their one and only goal at the 90th minute. Overall, it was just sad. Final score was Germany 7-1, securing their spot in the final.
The Netherlands and Argentina game was better. Both team were pretty equally matched with shots on goal and defensive moves. But at full time, the score was still 0-0. The match moved into two 15 minute overtime periods. Neither produced any goals and they headed into penalty kicks. In the end, the Netherlands missed a shot and Argentina won, securing their spot against Germany in the final. Messi and his team couldn’t contain their excitement.
Yesterday was the last match of this year’s World Cup. It was an exciting game simply because it was the final! Out of 32 teams, Germany and Argentina made it to the end.
The game was decently matched with both sides having several chances to score. But both strong defenses minimized the shots on goal. At one point, Argentina had a perfect shot on goal. Gonzalo Higuain thought he scored in the 30th minute from a Messi pass. Higuain celebrated to the corner flag before realizing the goal was called offside. Germany almost had a goal off of a header, but it hit the post instead.
After full time the match was still 0-0, so they moved into overtime. Both teams had the chance to score early on. And lucky for Germany, a substitute Mario Gotze entered the match in time to score the winning goal in the 113th minute. Gotze volleyed the ball past goalkeeper Sergio Romero, landing it inside the far post. A perfect shot.
Argentina superstar Lionel Messi had a chance for redemption in the 120th minute with a free kick, but it went high over the goal. In my opinion, he should have passed and moved the ball around with his teammates to actually get into the box. Taking a long free kick like his was just selfish. But I guess that’s the difference between Germany and Argentina.
Ha, don’t you just love Internet memes? But don’t get me wrong, collegiettes™. Messi is an amazing player and even left the World Cup with the Golden Ball award for the tournament’s best player.
But soon after the 120th minute free kick, the overtime period ended and the match was a Germany win. Messi wasn’t too happy ending in second place, but Germany deserved the win based on the way they played as a team. Germany has not won a World Cup title for 24 years and they finally did it again!
The countdown starts now to the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada!
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